


Only In the Shadows

by TheGreatCatsby



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: FrostIron - Freeform, M/M, Magic, tony and loki try to save the universe, tw: self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatCatsby/pseuds/TheGreatCatsby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We'll always have Hel."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only In the Shadows

A century could have passed. 

A century could have passed. It could have been ten years. 

The cell was made up of four walls, two glass, two white walls made of some reinforced material. The glass walls faced the other prison cells, so Loki could see what was going on. There were not many other prisoners. 

Frigga gave him books, and he tried to read them, but his mind spun and surged in different directions. His hands shook as they turned pages his eyes wouldn’t read. He had the urge to tear, and rather than tear his skin, he tore the pages and watched the pieces of paper flutter in the air with their now-incomprehensible words. 

At first. 

Then his mind betrayed him, and made him think that perhaps, if he dug deep enough, he would be able to release the magic hidden in his veins, circumvent the binding of that essential sense that made him himself. It was not just this cell. It was something Odin had placed in his skin, and he had to dig and dig. So he did, with nails that were never sharp enough, creating rivers of blood that flowed over his skin. 

But he could not dig deep enough. He longed for a knife. He paced the cell, scratching at his skin. 

No one came. 

Not even Thor. 

Loki felt angry—did Odin expect him to learn anything of value by leaving him here to rot? Another part of his brain chimed in that he had done this to himself by alienating his family. Perhaps none of them wanted to deal with the ugly thing he had become. He certainly didn’t. But he was stuck in this too-tight skin with no way of knowing. He could bang on the unbreakable glass and it would accomplish nothing, just as carving lines into his skin with his nails was accomplishing nothing. 

Then everything disappeared. 

Loki had been concentrating on his wrists, watching the blood course underneath and over his skin when a noise took him from his reverie. When he looked up, there were dead bodies littering the prison floor. His fellow inmates had all been murdered, not a survivor among them. 

Except for Loki himself. 

And then the glass walls of his cell disappeared. 

Loki staggered to his feet, legs shaky from the pain of split skin and lack of sustenance, and he made his way to the cell’s edge, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, over it. 

There was no resistance. Which meant that Asgard’s defenses were down. 

He picked his way through the bodies towards the corridor that would lead him up into the palace. As he neared the end of the cells, he heard a noise. 

It was soft, a sort of crunching sound. Loki turned a corner and saw a silver-clad alien crushing armor in its hands. 

He froze, and the soldier looked up at him with its sickening familiar cold gaze, with eyes black as the void. “The false prince,” it hissed. 

Loki could not say a word. He could not do a thing. His magic was still locked away. 

“I have a message for you,” the Chitauri soldier continued. “There is no escape. The Other is coming.” It shrieked laughter and turned, walking away. 

Loki stood there for a moment, feeling sick. Where were the guards? Thor? Would they truly leave him defenseless in the face of such an invasion? His left hand scratched at his right arm in a futile gesture. He felt no more magic outside of the cell than he’d felt within it. 

After a few moments he made his way forward, through the corridor, up into the palace, and met no resistance. It was quiet, save for small sounds here and there. The Chitauri soldier had disappeared with the rest of them. 

There were a few bodies, none of them familiar. 

Loki found himself on the bifrost, newly repaired and abandoned. He made his way into the device that could take him to other worlds. He did not need magic for this. 

Part of him considered staying. He had not been released, and he would be hunted down by at least the Other if not Odin. And yet, if he stayed, it would be that much easier to avoid the Other’s wrath. And if he left, perhaps he could gain hold of tools to regain his magic. His mind went to a knife, but he knew there were stronger things. Energy sources that could reach where a knife could not without killing him. 

He stepped towards the center of the bifrost, lifted the sword that had been left there, and thrust it into the center. Around him, the walls started spinning, and Loki opened his mouth and laughed. 

The energy pulled him into its embrace, and he allowed himself to be swept away. 

\---

It was not every day that a freak storm occurred over New York City, specifically over Central Park. Certainly not a bifrost incident, but that’s what Jane Foster was telling Tony frantically over the phone on one line, while on the other Fury was yelling at him to get his ass in the suit and get over there. 

Tony wanted Thor to do it. He wanted to stay in the lab and analyze things. But Thor wasn’t on Earth, he remembered. Which left him as the only one who could safely fly into the middle of a bifrost storm. 

He hoped the bifrost was Thor. Whenever Thor appeared, they always had a bit of a panic as to whether it was actually Thor or not and usually someone went to check out the site. And the bifrost had never appeared in Central Park before. Thor was considerate like that. 

Tony got into the suit and flew out just as the swirl of clouds was retracting into the sky, which looked strange because it was an otherwise sunny day. He flew over the field in which the bifrost had landed and saw a bunch of symbols inscribed into the grass in a circle like a sudden work of modern art. 

And then he saw the person crouching at the center, a smudge of black against the intricate surface. And it was not Thor. 

“Jarvis,” Tony said, “Is that—?”

“My readings indicate that it is Loki, sir,” Jarvis said. 

Tony indulged himself in cursing at Jarvis before taking a deep breath and flying down to make what was now looking to be an arrest. 

He landed next to Loki, who was kneeling in the dirt and didn’t seem to notice or care that Tony was there. Tony cleared his throat and said, “Um, I thought we told you to stay off our lawn.”

Loki glanced up at him, now, with confusion in his eyes. Tony could see that life hadn’t treated Loki well. His face was too thin, too pale. He was wearing torn black clothes that were too loose. The confusion cleared from Loki’s features and was replaced with annoyance. “Stark,” he said. “I should have known they would send you.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tony asked. 

Loki gave him an infuriating little smile. 

“Okay,” Tony said. “Well, you’re coming with me.” 

Loki didn’t move. He continued to look at Tony like he was something very amusing. Tony had to admit, his speech was kind of underwhelming, but he wasn’t in the habit of capturing people and bringing them to SHIELD in a setting that didn’t involve guns and knocking someone unconscious. 

“Maybe you didn’t hear me—” Tony started. 

Loki cut him off. “Is there not something odd about the proceedings?” 

Tony shrugged. “We’re in Central Park. The bifrost hasn’t ever opened here before. You’re here. And Thor...isn’t.” 

“Where is Thor, I wonder?” Loki asked. “Because he wasn’t in Asgard to stop my escape. Nor is he here to bring me back.” 

Tony ignored the part of his brain that was agreeing with Loki. “He’s always off on his adventures,” he said. “He’ll be back.” 

“Are you certain?” Loki asked. There was a strange sort of energy to him, to his words. 

Tony sighed. “You’re just trying to rile me up. We know your game. Lie to us and play with words all you want, but we’re not buying it. In about,” Tony paused for a moment. “Jarvis, the Avengers are how far away?” 

“Thirty seconds,” Jarvis replied. 

“Right,” said Tony. “They’ll haul your ass to the nearest prison. Which happens to be my tower. We have a nice set of cells in the basement.” 

Loki nodded, and his gaze moved downwards, to Tony’s chest. 

“What are you looking at?” Tony asked, because the intensity of Loki’s gaze was creeping him out. Though not as much as the other anxiety-inducing thought that had been taking shape for some time, the one asking why Loki hadn’t up and disappeared yet, or hadn’t even attempted an attack. 

That was really, really weird. 

From behind, he heard Natasha shout, “Stay where you are!” She and Clint rushed forward and cuffed Loki’s wrists before pulling him up. The fabric slipped up his arms, and Tony felt sick. 

There were deep, bloody grooves. Everywhere. Up and down Loki’s arms, and he caught a glimpse or two of red on his chest. Almost in a trance, he watched Natasha and Clint drag Loki to the car. Loki’s expression was impassive, as if this wasn’t a bother at all. 

But his eyes—they seemed hollow. The mark of a broken man. 

Tony shook himself out of his thoughts and followed Natasha and Clint back to the tower. 

\---

Loki was put in the strongest cell Tony had, with feeds (that he had grudgingly allowed) directly to SHIELD, re-enforced steel bars, and all sorts of monitoring equipment. The one thing Tony hadn’t figured out yet was how to stop Loki’s magic from working. 

It seemed like this wasn’t an issue. 

When they locked Loki in the cell for lack of a better plan, there was no magic in use. Jarvis knew how to read magic energy, even if he couldn’t exactly parse out what it was, and it was this energy that was noticeably absent. Loki hadn’t even tried to test the waters.

But there where the gashes that seemed to be all over Loki’s body, and those made Tony feel ill. “Can’t we do something about that?” he asked. 

Bruce glanced at the cell, where Loki had sat down on the cot. “I would do something if there was any guarantee I wouldn’t Hulk out on him.” 

“I’ll go in with you then,” Tony said, even though he didn’t want to see the injuries. “I have the suit on—I can get Loki out of there and I think the cell can hold the Other Guy long enough for you to calm down.”

Bruce hesitated, but finally agreed and got some medical supplies before he and Tony headed into the cell. Loki watched them enter, mouth set in a thin line. As Bruce came closer with his tray of medical tools Loki looked as though he wanted to back away. 

Bruce set the tray on the cot next to Loki and said, “You’re wounded. I’m gonna clean and bandage the cuts, okay?” 

Loki didn’t say anything, just watched as Bruce took a cloth soaked in some antiseptic liquid and moved towards him. He grabbed Loki’s arm, intending to start there, when Loki jerked back. 

“What?” Bruce asked. 

“Don’t,” Loki said. 

“I’m just gonna wrap them—-”

“No.” Loki pulled him arm against his chest. 

“Is there a reason you don’t want to be healed?” Bruce asked. Loki glared at him. 

“Or a reason why you aren’t already?” Tony added, stepping forward. “Jarvis has been monitoring your use of magic. And, strangely enough, there isn’t any magic going on here. Wanna explain that?”

“Not particularly,” Loki said. 

“Are those,” Tony gestured to the gashes on Loki’s arm with a grimace, “part of your punishment?” 

“No,” Loki said. Then, “Yes. Perhaps.” 

Tony frowned. Then something occurred to him, and he gasped. “Did they take away your magic?” 

“They cannot take away my magic,” Loki snapped, “just as they cannot take away your blood without you dying.” 

“I feel like that’s not really the same thing,” Tony said. 

“Is it?” Loki asked. “What do you know of magic, Stark?”

Tony wished he had a good answer for that. Loki smirked knowingly. 

“Okay,” Bruce said, “but if you can’t use your magic, then you have the disadvantage. Might as well tell us everything, right? You can’t escape.”

“What is there to tell?” Loki asked. 

“How did you get these injuries?” Bruce asked. “How did you escape Asgard?” 

“What happened to Thor?” Tony added. 

“You would not want to know,” Loki said. “And I don’t know.” 

“To which questions?” Bruce asked. 

“Figure it out,” Loki said. “I hear you are intelligent.” 

“Why can’t we heal your wounds?” Bruce asked. 

Loki gave him a blank look. “Perhaps I don’t want the help of mortals, especially those that would just as soon kill me as heal me.” 

“That’s exaggerating a little,” Tony said. “At least in my case.” 

Loki glanced away from them. He said, “Why should I tell you anything? You will assume I’m lying.” 

“Good point,” Tony muttered. “Although we do have Natasha, and she’s better than any lie detector.” 

“The Widow,” Loki murmured. 

“I’ll bring her down tomorrow for a nice chat,” Tony said. “Let you think about what you’ve done.” Which, to be fair, they didn’t know what it was that he’d done. But Tony assumed it was something bad. 

“I look forward to it,” Loki said in the tone of voice of someone who was blatantly lying and wanted everyone to know. 

Tony grabbed a semi-relieved Bruce and they left the cell. 

\---

Tony didn’t sleep much that night. He spent his time tinkering with random things and trying to analyze the lack of readings from Jarvis. Unless Loki was playing a trick on them (highly likely), he didn’t have his magic. Or rather, he couldn’t use it. Loki had been pretty adamant about people not being able to take his magic away. 

That could have been a lie, too. 

This was why Tony hated dealing with Loki. He never knew what was a lie or the truth. He didn’t even know what was going on, and it put him in the rare position of being uncertain about everything. 

He and Natasha went to Loki’s cell the next morning. When Tony remarked that he hadn’t slept, Natasha said, “He’ll do that to you.” 

“Did you sleep?” Tony asked. 

Natasha’s lips twitched. “Yup.” 

“Fine.” Tony folded his arms over his chest. He wasn’t wearing the suit, mainly because it didn’t seem necessary after yesterday’s uneventful meeting. But Natasha was carrying a gun. So they weren’t completely unarmed. 

Loki looked as though he had spent the night not sleeping as well, though he leaned forward on the cot expectantly. Tony and Natasha took their places standing in front of him, and he grinned at them in that way that wasn’t happy or reassuring at all. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Tony snapped. 

“So,” said Natasha, “what’s up with Thor?” 

It was such a casual question. Loki took a deep breath. 

“No,” Natasha said before he could speak, “actually, think about that. How’d you get those injuries?” 

“Punishment,” Loki said. 

“And why haven’t you healed them?” 

“To show those blinded by Asgard’s glory that the realm can be cruel.” 

“Right,” Natasha said. “It’s also not true. You don’t like looking weak. You’ve always been considered weak and you’ve spent your whole life fighting against that image.” 

“What if that image suits me?” Loki asked. 

“For what? Sympathy?” Natasha asked. “Again, not your game.” 

Loki turned his attention to Tony. “We all know what it is to be considered weak and to have to fight to look strong.” 

“This isn’t about me,” Tony said. 

“For once, it is,” Loki said. He stood up, and it was so unexpected that Tony took a step back. Natasha’s hand hovered over her gun. 

“Sit down,” she said. 

“I think not,” Loki said. “If you shoot me, you’ll have to answer for Asgard. My punishment was not meant to be death.” 

“I’ll answer for it, then,” Natasha said. “Sit. Down.” 

Loki turned to Tony. “My words don’t matter to you, do they?” Before Tony could respond, Loki lunged at him. 

It all happened very fast. Loki’s hands were on his shirt, ripping and Tony heard two loud bangs, at which point Loki stopped ripping and fell onto him, and his shirt became wet and Loki screamed. 

Then Natasha was kneeling next to them and pulling Loki off, and he screamed again when she moved him, one pale hand turning red with blood as he clutched his side. Tony looked down at himself. His chest, scarred, was exposed and his shirt and some of his skin was wet with sticky blood. 

“Fuck,” he said. “What-?” 

Natasha was asking Jarvis to get Bruce in the cell with some sedative and Loki was crying out words that Tony couldn’t understand. He sat up, too aware of the blood on him turning cold, and he felt sick. 

He looked at Natasha and Loki. 

Blood was freely pouring out of the wound in Loki’s side and Loki’s eyes were burning into Tony with such ferocity that Tony thought he had shot Loki and not Natasha. And then Loki snarled, “Where is it?”

“Where?” Tony repeated. 

“It isn’t there,” Loki said, his voice desperate. He was still pulling against Natasha, who held him tightly. “It isn’t there. It was there, and now it’s not, over your heart. Where did you put it?” 

It took Tony a moment to remember what Loki had seen in his chest once, a long time ago. He put a hand over his heart, over the solid skin. “I took it out,” he said. 

Loki screamed again in fury. 

Bruce entered the cell with syringe in-hand and dropped down next to Natasha. Loki didn’t even notice he was there, not even as Bruce injected him in the arm. Then Loki’s breath caught, his eyes slipped shut, and Bruce and Natasha were carrying him away. 

Tony stayed on the floor. Loki had been trying to get at his arc reactor. And what for? 

“What just happened?” he asked the air. 

“I am not quite certain, sir,” Jarvis said. “Perhaps you will ask Loki when he awakens.” 

Tony groaned and buried his head in his hands, having forgotten that in Stark Tower, there was no such thing as talking to yourself. 

But Jarvis had a point. Loki had shown his hand, desperate though it was. And Tony wanted to know why. So he would wait, and he wouldn’t be as good at interrogation at Natasha, but it was he who had built the arc reactor, not her. And Loki knew it. 

He only hoped that, made desperate as he was, Loki would be more willing to give information. 

\----

“I’ve bound the scratches,” Bruce told Tony later over lunch. “Took out the bullet. The cuts are very ragged, like-like-” Tony waited. Bruce swallowed and pushed away his plate. “Like nail marks. Like scratches, but deep.” 

Tony felt a bit queasy about that. “What did it?” 

Bruce said, “There was blood under Loki’s fingernails.” 

And that did it. Tony stood up. “I need a drink,” he said, “and something to science over. Brain bleach. You in?” 

Bruce nodded and followed him to the labs. 

Tony filed the information away for later, for when he talked to Loki. For now, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—think about it. 

\---

The next day Tony only had a slight hangover—an accomplishment, given what he’d been trying to forget—and so it was only with a small headache that he went to Loki’s cell. 

Loki was sitting on the cot, looking a bit dazed. He didn’t even notice Tony when he walked in, just kept staring at something nobody else could see. It was disturbing. Tony wondered if Bruce had given him some sort of drug that kept him calm. 

When Tony was right in front of Loki, Loki finally looked at him. His arms were covered in white bandages, as was the skin beneath his shirt. Tony noted that his hands, which were clenched in his lap, looked blood free. Which was a relief. 

“What did you want, before?” Tony asked. 

Loki continued to stare at him. Then his eyes moved to Tony’s chest. “Where did it go?” he asked, voice ragged. 

“I got rid of it,” Tony said. “Didn’t want to be that vulnerable. And, as it turned out, doctors had figured out how to fix me when they couldn’t before. So I took advantage. I didn’t want a battery in my chest for the rest of my life, even if it was useful.” 

“I see,” Loki said. His jaw clenched and he looked away. 

Got you, Tony thought. Out loud he asked, “Why do you care? What do you need the arc reactor for?” 

Loki didn’t say a word. 

Tony sighed. “Look, we all know that you want the arc reactor, that you need it. You were desperate yesterday. So there’s no point in hiding anything.” 

“You already know that I don’t have my magic,” Loki said, after a moment. 

“We don’t,” Tony said. “Not officially, anyway.” 

“Odin locked it away,” Loki said. “He cannot take my magic away from me without killing me, so he buried it inside. And I need it. I need a source of great power to unlock the magic.” 

“Why?” Tony asked. 

Loki gave him a look of annoyance. “It is part of me.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes,” Loki said. One of his hands came up to rub against the bandages in his arm. “It feels like my skin is not my own, like if I just cut deep enough I can release it. It is like not having an essential sense, and the world is off-balance because of it. It would be like taking away your eyesight and expecting you to see.” 

“That doesn’t make sense,” Tony said. 

“You know nothing,” Loki growled, “of what makes sense,” 

“Why would I give you back your magic?” Tony asked. “Even if that were true, and even if it’s hurting you, you’ve hurt us and it’s part of your punishment. Which, by the way, you’re breaking the terms of because you’ve escaped. So. I need a better reason.” 

Loki seemed to be fighting an internal battle. After a few moments he looked up at Tony and asked, softly, “Would you believe me?” 

Tony opened his mouth to answer and then his breath caught in his throat. What had he meant to say? Yes? No? No was the obvious answer because Loki lied, that was what he did. But they wouldn’t get anywhere if Tony automatically believed Loki was lying about everything. And on some level, he’d been telling the truth. 

So he said, “Yeah, if it makes sense.” 

Loki nodded and wrapped his arms around himself, leaning forward a bit. Then he said, “You know that Thor and Odin would never allow me to escape the realm, especially not using the bifrost. Yet, that is the only way I could have come here without my magic. Walking between the worlds does not have the same effect. You would not have noticed.” 

“Okay,” Tony said. “Makes sense except for one thing: why didn’t they stop you?” 

“They weren’t there,” Loki said. “I was in my cell when Asgard was attacked. I do not know where they went, only that the castle was empty of everyone except for a few soldiers. Chitauri soldiers.”

Tony shuddered. “So they were on your side? They freed you?” 

Loki laughed coldly. “I have failed them,” he said. He sounded like he was echoing someone else’s words. “They will punish me, eventually. If they can take me.” And here, a cold determination that this would not happen. “But something happened. I don’t know what. They may have taken artifacts of great power.” 

“Like the Tesseract?” 

Loki nodded. “It does not explain where everyone is.” 

“That is one major hole in your story,” Tony agreed. But the rest made sense, if Loki wasn’t lying about the Chitauri being his enemies now. Which, speaking of, “Who’s leading the Chitauri if you’re not?” 

“A creature known only as the Other,” Loki said, “and Thanos. Thanos is...” He paused. “Powerful. Ancient. He wants nothing more than the death of all the realms.” 

“That’s a lot to ask,” Tony said. “And the Tesseract could get him this?” 

“Yes,” Loki said. “The Tesseract can do almost anything, if one knows how to wield it. But it can consume the user as well. It is dangerous. This is why it was locked away.” 

Tony nodded. “So Thor is, I’m guessing, somewhere imprisoned by these Chitauri people.”

“Or fighting them,” Loki said. “Perhaps they have driven them to another part of Asgard, away from the castle. I did not stay to check. They could have driven them off-planet, or to another realm.”

“And you’d be willing to rescue Thor?” Tony asked. 

“No,” Loki said. “That would be your job. I want revenge against the Chitauri and the Other. They thought they could take advantage of me. They thought to keep me in place with threats of torture. But I used them, Stark, for my own revenge, and had things gone to plan, I would have had the Tesseract in my grasp. I would have destroyed them for taking advantage of me when I fell onto their backwater planet. But now I have this opportunity. I am not going to waste it rescuing Thor.” 

“You totally want to rescue Thor,” Tony said. “Liar.” 

Loki glared at him and Tony added, “I think I’m the only one with the equipment to go into space. So let’s say I decide to work with you. I get the suit and you whisk us away on your magical dream tour and it all works out as planned. What happens afterwards, with the Tesseract?” 

Loki’s eyes flashed. “I destroy them.” 

“And after that?” Tony prompted. 

“Thor can have it.” 

Tony thought that was a lie if he’d ever heard one, but he let it go. Cross that bridge when they come to it, and all that. He nodded and said, “I’ll give you back your magic. But you have to promise not to hurt me, or side with them, and at the end of it all you have to promise not to take the Tesseract. Deal?” 

Loki’s lips curved into a knife-like smile. “Deal.” 

Tony left to prepare. The others would kill him, later. But if he got Thor back and got Loki off their backs, it would be worth it. 

Hopefully he didn’t get killed in the process. 

\---

Half an hour later, with assistance from Jarvis in helping him avoid everyone in the tower, and overriding certain camera feeds, Tony walked into Loki’s cell fully decked out in his suit and holding a spare arc reactor in his hands. 

Loki’s eyes widened when he saw the arc reactor. Tony muttered, “Here,” and shoved the thing into Loki’s hands. Loki cupped it, which made his palms grow a strange blue, and then he closed his eyes. 

The arc reactor flashed bright enough that Tony had to shut his eyes, and he could still feel the light burning into his retinas. And then it was over, and Tony blinked away the spots of light dancing in his vision to see Loki standing up. The arc reactor, dead and dark, had been discarded on the floor. But it seemed to have the desired effect; Loki seemed visibly better; he was standing straighter, and his eyes no longer looked dull and glassy. And, he didn’t look pale as a ghost, which was promising. For the mission, anyway. If Loki went back on his word now Tony would be screwed. 

But for Loki’s part, he stood there for a second, just breathing. He closed his eyes and seemed to be basking in the glow of something—magic, probably. He flexed his hands and then, in a golden flash, his ragged clothes disappeared and were replaced seamlessly by his black and green leathers. He looked less like a strung-out drug addict and more like someone at least a little prepared for battle. 

“Great,” Tony said. “You gotta do hair and make-up or should we go?” 

Loki gave him a disdainful look and then stepped closer. “As you wish, Stark,” he said. “Don’t let go.” He grabbed Tony’s arm and the ground dropped out beneath him. 

It was like floating, like someone had suddenly switched off gravity and all of Tony’s senses and before he could get a handle on what, exactly, he was feeling, his feet hit solid ground and everything came back to him in a rush. He gasped, and opened his eyes, and saw Loki regarding him with something like amusement. 

“I hate you,” Tony said. 

Loki hummed and began walking. 

Tony realized they were standing on what looked like colorful glass. Various shades of every color imaginable flashed underneath his feet. Beneath the bridge, a waterfall tumbled into blackness. Behind him, golden spires rose from the ground and seemed to touch the sky. 

Loki was walking towards a spherical structure in the opposite direction, and even though Tony wanted to see the spires and what was inside, he followed without comment. 

As they drew closer, it became apparent that the structure had seen some damage—there were scorch marks marring the bronze outer shell, and the bridge itself seemed to bear marks as well. 

And there was a man dressed in gold crouched on the floor. 

“Heimdall,” Loki said. His voice carried so well that Tony realized, with a start, that it was because there was literally no other sound except for the distant roar of the waterfall. 

The man on the floor shifted, and Tony could see he was clutching a very large sword. As they drew closer, the man attempted to kneel, and struggling to hold himself up, brought the sword up so that it was pointing at his chest. 

“Go no further,” he rasped, “or I will run you through.” 

Loki actually stopped, grimacing. “I’m happy to see you too, Heimdall,” he said. “It looks like you have a lot to be getting on with without worrying about me.” 

“You are the problem,” Heimdall said. “You brought the Chitauri and the Mad Titan into Asgard.” 

“I was in my cell without magic,” Loki said. “I am not responsible this time.” 

“How do you have your magic now, then?” Heimdall asked. 

“That would be my fault,” Tony said. “He escaped, came to Earth, without his magic, and I got it back for him. Or, erm, helped him get it back. I’m Tony Stark, by the way.” 

“You are a friend of Loki’s?” Heimdall asked. 

“No,” Tony said quickly. “No, no. I’m a friend of Thor’s. But Loki said Thor’s missing and we have a sort of deal going on here.” 

“It is foolish to make deals with the liesmith,” Heimdall said. 

Tony shrugged. “Call me a fool.” 

“I am not responsible for this,” Loki repeated. “But you see all, Heimdall. Where is Thor? The Allfather? The Allmother? It seems that all of Asgard has disappeared.” 

“They are not here,” Heimdall said. “Thanos and his army have taken the battle to Hel, forcing our people into the land of the dead, where they will join those long since deceased. I was sent back to operate the bifrost, having been injured in battle, so that our men might have an escape.” 

“But you haven’t received word,” Loki said. Heimdall shook his head and lowered his sword, exhausted. “That means they are still fighting. Or they’ve lost.” Loki’s voice was emotionless. Tony wondered what he was feeling. 

“Does it give you joy?” Heimdall asked. 

“Thanos would kill us all,” Loki said. “You’re lucky, Heimdall. I have a vested interest in winning this battle. And, as you know, I have quite the connection in Hel.” 

“I doubt you will be helpful,” Heimdall said. 

Loki smirked. “Well, luckily, I don’t need your opinion.” 

“Wait,” said Tony. “When you say hell, do you mean hell? Like the firey pits of doom where people not good enough to go elsewhere go after they die?” 

Loki grimaced. “Sort of. There are no flames.” 

“That’s good,” Tony said. 

“It is much worse,” Loki said. 

“Not so good,” Tony muttered. “So what do we do?” 

Loki cast a final glance at Heimdall, who was glaring at him, and then grabbed Tony’s arm again. “We go to Hel,” he said with a grin, and everything disappeared again. 

\---

Tony didn’t believe in hell, or heaven. But if he had to picture it, he would have gone with the traditional everything-is-on-fire approach. 

Hel, the realm, was not like that at all. 

If Tony had to describe it in one word, he would describe it as cold. 

Not temperature-wise, though there was an unpleasant damp sort of chill in the air that was soaking into his bones and making it hard to move, but rather in appearance. The atmosphere was a slate-gray, and everything was colored in varying shades of gray-scale. The ground was black, and a fog made it hard to see very far. Shadows moved within the mist like ghosts, and it occurred to Tony that they very well might be. 

Next to him, Loki’s skin had drained of color, become a sickly shade of white. Tony wondered if he looked the same, if the environment had that effect on people, of washing them out, or if there was something particular to Loki that was happening here. 

Aside from the shadows, the whole place was eerily empty of people. 

“Where are they?” Tony asked, and even his voice seemed muted. 

“Hidden,” Loki said. “Hel is not like normal reality. It is much more connected to the mind.” 

“What?” Tony asked. He glanced at Loki, who had wrapped his arms around his middle in almost an unconscious gesture. “Are we seeing different things?” 

“Only in the shadows,” Loki muttered. His gaze drifted along the horizon and then he looked at Tony, dazed. “Hela makes us see what she wants us to see.” 

“Oh that’s perfect,” Tony said. Then, “Wait—she? Hela? There’s a person?” 

“The ruler of this realm,” Loki said. “Ruler of the dead. And she won’t make it easy, not for us. Not when she stands to gain so much.” 

“The universe,” Tony said, “if Thanos’ plan works.” 

Loki nodded. He turned away from Tony and called out, “The question is, will she grace us with her presence?” 

At first nothing happened, and Tony thought they were going to spend all day walking through fog and finding nothing. Then, the fog shifted, and one shadow seemed to be coming towards them. 

When the shadow finally became a person, Tony felt like he was in some sort of surreal nightmare. His body was frozen and he couldn’t look away, no matter how much he wanted to. And this, indeed, was hell.

Hela was a woman, in the loosest sense of the word. She had pale, almost sickly gray skin, with black hair and black lips and a black dress—on one side. On the other, she was rotting flesh hanging in strips from bleached bones, hair matted with blood clinging to a bare skull, from which two pitch-black, fathomless eyes stared hungrily at the two before her. 

“Loki,” she said. Her voice reminded Tony of nails scratching a chalkboard; it wasn’t the same sound, but it produced the same reaction within him. He wanted it to stop. It seemed to physically pain him. 

“Hela,” Loki said, still subdued. 

“I know why you’ve come,” Hela said. “You wish to stop the Mad Titan in his quest to please his mistress.” She gave him a sickly smile. “Would you deny me my gift?” 

“Yes,” Loki said. “Where is he?” 

“Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hela purred. “If you expect me to give up such a gift, you need to give me something in return.” 

“Darn,” Tony spoke up, despite wanting to do nothing more than hide, “I forgot my bag of trinkets.” 

Hela gazed upon him. “Tell me, what would be worth your request? What would you exchange for the universe to live a little while longer, to get revenge on those who hurt you? And they have hurt you, Loki. So terribly. Not just Thanos and the Other, but Asgard as well. Why are you doing this? What is it worth to you?” 

“Revenge,” Loki answered. His hands were now clenched into fists, arms held rigid at the side of his body. “And, I don’t really want to die at this very moment.” 

“Such a change from before,” Hela said. Tony frowned. What was she talking about? 

“I’ve changed,” Loki said. 

“I haven’t,” Hela told him. “I want payment. So let’s negotiate. My terms: you stay with me, and Stark goes to battle alone. He retrieves the Tesseract and destroys Thanos.” 

“And you would let him?” Loki asked. 

“Wait, what happens to him?” Tony asked. 

Hela smiled. 

“He’s human,” Loki said in a low voice. “He can’t handle the Tesseract.” 

“Excuse you!” Tony snapped. 

“Lies, Loki,” Hela said. She reached forward with a hand made of bone and only bone, and raked a finger across Loki’s cheek. He shuddered. “Don’t worry,” she added to Tony. “I won’t kill him. But he has so many demons. It will be exquisite to see him squirm.” 

“That isn’t comforting,” Tony said. “I can’t have that on my head.”

Hela turned her gaze upon Loki again. “You know you deserve it, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.” 

“Make a different offer,” Tony said. 

“I accept,” said Loki. 

Tony spun to him, but Loki kept his eyes on Hela, who placed her bony hand on his shoulder. “What!” he cried. “Loki, this is ridiculous, you can’t-”

And then Hela and Loki disappeared. 

Tony swore and kicked the ground. It didn’t hurt; the soil was soft, like it had been well-fertilized. 

And then shouts caught Tony’s attention. 

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again—

and found himself in the middle of a battlefield. 

\----

Tony hadn’t been on a traditional battle field, ever. And he never wanted to be on one again. There were dead people carpeting the ground. Tony took one look at them and decided that, no, that wasn’t happening, and he set off into the air. 

Flying overhead, he could see the full extent of the carnage; there was a lot of it, but there were also a lot of people up and about, equal parts those from Asgard and the Chitauri. He caught sight of a bolt of lightning and decided to make his way in that general direction because, well, Thor. 

As it turned out, Thor was fighting Thanos. 

He was drenched in black blood, his armor was torn in places, and he was screaming as he hit the Mad Titan with lightning. Tony had never seen Thanos before, but he knew the creature in front of him, giant, with leathery red skin and dark eyes, was him. He exuded power. In fact, he was holding the very definition of it. 

The Tesseract, glowing its ethereal blue, was cupped between his hands. He wasn’t engaging in hand-to-hand combat with Thor, but rather attempting to blast him with pure energy from the Tesseract. Thor would dodge, and the surrounding Chitauri would attack him in his moment of weakness. 

But Thanos wouldn’t suspect a flying guy in a red suit of metal to join the party, would he?

Tony wondered whether it was through Hela’s influence (since she clearly influenced a lot of this realm) that he was able to get close enough to Thanos to shoot him in the back of the head. He saw Thor’s look of shock and surprise, heard him shout in celebration, and then Thanos began to fall, and when he did, he let go of the Tesseract. 

The Tesseract flew through the air, and Tony flew after it. He caught it, could feel a strange sort of warmth through his armor. “So this is what power feels like,” he muttered. “Huh.”

That’s when things got strange. 

Suddenly, it was as if everything had stopped, and it was just Tony and the Tesseract. But it was more than that. Tony could see the threads linking everything together, and he knew that he could change them. He could see Thor’s bright lifeline, and Thanos’, so much like a black hole, and somewhere else in the battlefield the Other, seething amongst a sea of blood. Far off he could feel the void of Hela, and the chaotic mess that was Loki, and the strange barrier between Tony and them that Hela must have erected. 

He could see the Earth, and many other realms. Planets. He could feel Pepper as if she were right next to him, and the other Avengers, too. He could do so much-

But no, he had come for something very specific. Casually, almost like cutting a thread with scissors, he cut the life out of Thanos and the Other. He let the Chitauri live, because he hadn’t last time. Then, he broke down the barrier Hela had erected that was isolating her and Loki from the rest of the realm, and then trapped her inside her throne room for a time. And Loki, shaking like a leaf from the demons Hela had made him face while she watched in glee, he transported to the battlefield. And then he took those from Asgard, save for Thor, and transported them back there, before sending himself, Loki, and Thor back to Earth, to his Tower, where he gave Jarvis a certain amount of information that he could tell the Avengers which would, hopefully, allow them to contain the Tesseract and not arrest Loki. 

Finally, he allowed the Tesseract to fall from his hands, and hit the polished floor of his tower. 

He was thrust back into reality very quickly, and he found it tiring. Thor was staring at him, standing opposite. So was Loki, but he was on the floor, looking a bit like death and still shaking. But the look in his eyes was that of gratitude. 

His brain was tired, his body spent. Tony looked at Thor, and then at Loki, said, “Well, shit.” Then he collapsed. 

\---

Tony opened his eyes. It was dark. Then he thought, I just saved the universe, and felt good about himself. 

But he was still tired. 

He sat up and looked around as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light (and that was frustrating, when he knew what true sight was) and noticed a shadow by the window. A tall shadow with long hair. 

“Loki,” he said. 

Loki turned around. His eyes seemed over-bright, and as he moved towards the bed he seemed to shake a bit. Like he wasn’t quite over what had happened. 

“What time is it?” he asked, instead of all the other things he could have said. 

Loki hit him, lightly, on the cheek. “You fool,” he hissed. “You held the Tesseract in your hands and used it, and it could have overwhelmed you. It could have destroyed the universe, the whole of reality, if your mind had been a bit more pliable.” 

Tony gave him a smile. “It’s a good think that didn’t happen, right?” 

Loki scoffed and folded his arms over his chest. He looked as though he wanted to say something, maybe a million things, but couldn’t figure out how. 

“You’re not arrested,” Tony pointed out. 

“Your computer informed us about what happened,” Loki said, “and the Avengers decided to believe it. They have discussed, at length, the situation and have decided that neither you nor I are at fault. However, I do believe they are suspicious of you.” His voice shook, just a little. 

Tony frowned. “Are you okay?” he asked. 

Loki made a choking sound, then gasped. Tony didn’t know what to do. He watched as Loki tried to pull himself together. Whatever Hela had done, it had hurt him badly. After a few moments Loki looked at Tony again and said, “Thank you.” 

“No problem,” Tony said. That wasn’t the whole story. He wondered if Loki was willing to tell it. “You could talk to me, you know. I won’t bite.” 

“Your enemy?” Loki asked. 

“Well, you did help save the universe,” Tony said. 

“In the name of revenge and self-preservation,” Loki reminded him. “I am not...not good.” His voice cracked. Tony knew these were things Loki had believed before, but he also had a feeling his time with Hela had made them worse. 

“How long did she have you?” he asked. 

Loki swallowed. “She can manipulate time,” he said. “Too long. Not as long as she might have.” He gave Tony a strange look. “You trusted me.”

“Well, enough to let you whisk me away to space,” Tony said. “You had a point, about people not believing you. Your fault, but still. You seemed desperate.” 

“Yes,” Loki said, absently. 

“So,” Tony said, “what now? Gonna make up with-”

“I have to go,” Loki said abruptly. “I-I need time. I cannot face him yet. Or any of them.” 

“Except for me,” Tony said. 

Loki sighed. “Only because you would haunt me across the realms if I didn’t thank you properly,” he said. 

“While you’re going away,” Tony said, “you should, um, think about that whole good person thing? Because you can be. Not traditionally, I mean, but like...you aren’t a monster.” 

“When I am not fighting Thor I will spare it a thought,” Loki said, and there was the hint of a smile. It made Tony feel a bit of relief. 

“Well,” said Tony, “I hope I see you again. If not, we’ll always have Hel.” 

“Indeed,” Loki said, leaning forward. His hand brushed Tony’s cheek, a gentle touch, and then his lips brushed Tony’s lips, shakily, but equally as comforting. “We will.” 

He vanished. 

Tony sat there, half between sleeping and wakefulness for a long time. He knew he would have to deal with many questions, with the retelling of what had happened between him and Loki and the Tesseract over and over, of what the other realms were like (and he planned to write that part down because other planets were awesome even if they weren’t) and he would have to try and forget about what truly seeing really was because otherwise it would bother him. Especially because he was certain the Tesseract would go back to Asgard. 

But he had saved the universe. He had made a former enemy (and was Loki that, now?) thank him for saving his life, and perhaps he had convinced that same enemy that he wasn’t a monster. And he could hope, in the future, that Loki wouldn’t be his enemy at all. It surprised him, a bit, to know that he cared about Loki’s fate so much. But the two of them could be friends, maybe, or maybe something else. 

That would be nice. 

It was the day after the universe almost ended, and Tony Stark felt content.


End file.
